In the latest example of how user-produced media can capture so-called “massively-shared” events in a way mainstream media can’t, a wave of images, blog posts and videos from a nationwide protest has been washing across the Web. The protests, dubbed “tea parties”…

Ahhh, “massively-shared” — really now, LA Times! Nationwide how many people have this protests against a popular president churned out? A thousand people, perhaps? Maybe two thousand? I’m willing to bet they’ve brought out a lot less.

These “tea parties” are like slumber parties compared to protests from the left — which you ignored.

During the Bush years, when I was a member of the protesting in the streets left (still try to be when I can), we didn’t have Twitter and regularly turned out protests of thousands of people — with nary a peep from clowns in the LA Times discussing a “massively-shared” event. In fact, it seemed the only time our protests made news is when we placed tens of thousands of people in the streets. Why is the bar for MSM coverage set so high for us, yet when conservatives stage “tea parties” whose size are roughly equal to Rush Limbaugh’s wang, suddenly that’s newsworthy?

The answer: Blame social media because us reporterz are TEH LAZEE.

Though even a year ago it would’ve been a slow and difficult process to chronicle a widely scattered protest such as this, the online community is now mastering the art of high-speed media sharing, a trend that can unite geographically disparate communities via the Web. Much of the sharing is now facilitated by the fast-growing messaging site Twitter…

Please. Quick history lesson: back in 1999 a website called Indymedia was founded to cover the WTO Protests in Seattle. The website grew into a global media movement, with Indymedia branches spreading out to over a hundred cities and regions. The main characteristics of Indymedia, then and now, is that anyone could post an article or write a comment on its open newswire.

You know, that sounds incredibly similar to blogs and social neworking.

This was around in 1999 — before WordPress, before Movable Type, before Blogger, before Twitter, before Facebook, before Web 2.0, before your mother, etc. All the news of national protests was posted there. Yet the LA Times is trying to tell me that covering “massively-shared” events across the nation was nearly impossible before Twitter? Fuck you.

The only difference between then and now is what the conservatively-biased media chooses to ignore. If you want to cover small conservative protests, fine, but don’t insult my intelligence by telling me how social networking of the late zeros (what is the name of this decade, anyway?) changes everything. Social networking has been around for a long time — don’t expect the MSM to mention it, or anything about the more massive protests from the left, though. They’re too busy teabagging Michelle Malkin.

And don’t forget:

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